Trees are nilrigid

Abstract

We study cellular automata on the unoriented $k$-regular tree $T_k$, i.e. continuous maps acting on colorings $T_k$ which commute with all automorphisms of the tree. We prove that every CA that is asymptotically nilpotent, meaning every configuration converges to the same constant configuration, is nilpotent, meaning each configuration is mapped to that configuration after finite time. We call group actions nilrigid when their cellular automata have this property, following Salo and T\"orm\"a. In this terminology, the full action of the automorphism group of the $k$-regular tree is nilrigid. We do not know whether there is a nilrigid automorphism group action on $T_k$ that is simply transitive on vertices.